US Open champion Sam Stosur has been handed a nightmare draw for the Australian Open that starts at Melbourne Park on Monday. The Australian has been out of touch, with early exits from Brisbane and Sydney, so she hardly needed to face Sorana Cirstea in the opening round.
If she dodges that bullet, she meets Nadia Petrova, the experienced 29th seed, in the second round. That makes three Aussie girls in the bottom quarter, with Jelena Dokic, and Jarmila Gajdosova.
Dokic has a tough opening round as well, with Russian Anna Chakvetadze, and if she survives, ninth-seed Marion Bartoli.
Gajdosova has 27th seed Maria Kirilenko first up, who will take a power of beating.
World number one for 68 weeks, Caroline Wozniacki has yet to win a Slam, but she has two more Aussies in her cross-hairs – Anastasia Rodionova in the opening round, and the 15-year-old Wimbledon junior girls champion Ashleigh Barty in the second.
But former champion Maria Sharapova, the fourth seed, will have her hands full with Gisela Dulko first up.
A vastly different story for defending champion Kim Clijsters. third seed Victoria Azarenko, fifth seed Li Na, eighth seed Agnieszka Radwanski, 10th seed Francesca Schiavone, and 12th seed, the four-time champion Serena Williams, who shouldn’t have any problems reaching the third round.
Anyone who wants to back against the fiercely competitive Serena does so at their own peril.
In the men’s, giant-killing Aussie teenager Bernard Tomic has drawn the mighty tough Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, seeded 22 and a much better player than that. And if Tomic survives that opening round, he gets the giant heavy-serving American Sam Querry in the second.
Perennial crowd favourite Lleyton Hewitt meets Germany’s Marcel Stebe in the first round, and if successful, has seventh-seed Andy Roddick in the second. Not much joy there either.
Promising Aussie teenager Matthew Ebden, ranked 97, takes on the 106-ranked Brazilian Joao Souza with every chance to advance.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer have arm-chair rides to the third round. But fourth-seed Andy Murray has to contend with American teenager Ryan Harrison first up, ranked in the top 100, who will be hard to put away as Murray is a slow starter.
Having said that, expect bigger things from Murray, a three-time Slam final loser, now he has legend Ivan Lendl in his corner.
The sleeper, Argentinean Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion on the comeback trail from injury, has a relatively smooth passage to the fourth round.
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